On December 1st, there was the 28th Annual Japanese Autumn Festival on Guam. It's one of the most locally attended annual events (other than the carnival since there are gambling stands) on Guam. Yes, unfortunately, it seems to be more attractive to the locals than the Guam Micronesian Islands Fair. The Autumn Festival features performances from different Japanese dance groups, the Matsuri, in which people carries a mikoshi (a portable Shinto shrine) and walk around Ypao Beach Park (traditionally, it should be carried from shrine to shrine), it is believed that whoever carries it would have good luck for the entire year. There are also raffle drawings (this year there are 3 Wii that were given out as prizes, other prices includes tickets to Japan), food vendors, and games such as snatching goldfish, etc. One thing you would see in the Autumn Festival is kids and teenagers wearing mask and carrying a fan. One of my main objective was to get Sumahi a mask for her first Autumn Festival.

It was very crowded, you could hardly get from one place to another without bumping into people. I saw a guy from the Sapporo Beer stand passing out Pikachu fan, we went and got one. As always, the place was filled with people wearing masks, there were all sort, from Winnie the Pooh, to Donald Duck, and.... EVEN PIKACHU!!! I had my mother take care of Sumahi while I went searching for the Pikachu mask in the mid of the huge crowd.

Sumahi's daddy is crazy about Pikachu. It is a mutual understanding that while Sumahi is the cutest thing in the world, Pikachu comes next, and when the two comes together, the cuteness is too much for a normal human body to handle. Since then, whenever I see Pikachu things that are affordable I would buy them, it had pretty much became a habit.

After bumping into a whole bunch of people, and squeezing into different toy stalls, I finally find the one that sell mask. However, when I got there, there are only three types left: Thomas the Engine, Yellow Ranger, and a little blonde girl mask, they are out of Pikachu... : ( I don't like Thomas the Engine, and I don't want Sumahi to have blonde hair... so I picked Yellow Ranger... well... at least it is yellow too...

I also saw a 2008 pokemon calendar, I wanted to get it, but I had already spent all my coupons on the mask (which was 6 coupons). Therefore, I lined up to purchase a booklet of coupons (which was $10), and went back to the toy stall, but the calendar was gone! So I brought some toys for Sumahi, one was an Unichi-kun (Mr. Poop) from the anime "Dr. Slump" (See that pink soft ice cream like object on top of Sumahi's head at the picture below) another was a star necklace which has different color light that blinks.

Unfortunately, while I remembered to bring my camera that night, I left the memory card at home, so I was unable to take pictures at Ypao. But here are some pictures that I took with the stuff that we got that night.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Yesterday, Sumahi and I went to visit my friend Christina, whom just gave birth to a baby boy on November 18th, 2007. Her baby's name is Calep Gabriel (ahmm... I forgot her fiance's last name), he was 8 lb 10 oz and 21 inches at birth.

Sumahi fully displayed herself as a bihusauras while she was there. She grabbed on to Calep's mittens, socks, and chewed on Calep's foot. Ai adai!

Seeing Calep once again reminded me of how small Sumahi was when she was born, and of the first few tormenting weeks when I had to learn how to take care of a newborn all on my own. Even though it was only a few months ago, it seems as if a decade had past since then. And I remember what a beautiful newborn she was, no conehead, no pimples, no smashed-in nose, she was just... perfect.